


Blueberry-Cinnamon

by aintweproudriff



Series: Author's Picks [13]
Category: Bandstand - Oberacker/Oberacker & Taylor
Genre: 'mama it's amazing what baking can do', 5 Times, Canon Compliant, Divorce, F/M, I think this is sad because I cried but also I cry a lot so, pie pie pie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 23:05:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15568341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintweproudriff/pseuds/aintweproudriff
Summary: OR 5 Times Julia Bakes a PieOR Julia Trojan or Jenna Hunterson? Experts Aren't Sure(also including links to playlists I made for characters and ships)





	Blueberry-Cinnamon

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking the other day about the similarities between "Who I Was" and "She Used to Be Mine" and someone in the discord mentioned a headcanon that Julia stress bakes and this happened. 
> 
> Also, here are my Bandstand playlists so far:  
> [Donny/Julia](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdybek/playlist/7h3PzYKN53PC584TLcJtwI?si=QLZplgH8TbCg7R2gEzQneg)  
> [Davy](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdybek/playlist/2nw8c58wU94r53LXXfwWyo?si=vG4dT7A5SHuh6PddSvullA)  
> [Wayne/Nick/Johnny](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdybek/playlist/6UaXsUxwPEiObJPXn6MZLF?si=hvKpKh27SnG6DYf4ynvRgQ)
> 
> I'm debating if I should make the Davy playlist Davy/Jimmy, or if I should make a separate Jimmy playlist, or if I should make a Jimmy/Johnny playlist or something along those lines. If you've got suggestions, I'd love to hear them!!

Domesticity was an easy escape for Julia. She was lucky to have learned it, despite her mother's ineptness in the kitchen. From a young age, it had been a cunning reason to leave the house, and as she grew older, it became an equally cunning excuse to stay in. 

-

_“Your secretary has been doing much more than her job description for a while now!” her mother yelled, for what must have been the third time in the last two weeks._

_Julia wasn’t about to hang around to hear the rest of the fight. She’d procured quite a talent for reciting this exact conversation without a single hiccup, and no longer felt that she needed to practice to see if she could predict what her father would say to the allegation that he was having an affair, and she certainly didn’t want to see if either of them would have new points.  
She shoved a bookmark between the pages and left the book on the couch. If either of her parents noticed that she hadn’t bothered to clean up after herself, they would be too tired from the mudslinging to get on her case about it. She pulled her coat - new and white with a belt around the waist - over her shoulders and smoothed her skirt. _

_“I’m going to Miss Maria’s,” she called, knowing that neither of them heard her. “I’ll be back soon.”_

_She decided not to bother with a hat. It was only a few blocks, and she was young enough at thirteen that she didn’t need one whenever she went out just yet. The air was cold on her face as she pulled the front door closed behind her, but she didn’t mind. In fact, she hardly noticed it over the heat in her cheeks as she hurried down the street, on a familiar path._

_Miss Maria answered the door almost the instant that Julia knocked on it._

_“Hello, Miss Maria,” Julia breathed. “May I come in?”_

_She smiled warmly, stepping back so that Julia could walk through the doorway. “Of course, sweetheart,” Maria touched her shoulder. “You’re always welcome to come over. Why so suddenly today, though?”_

_Julia sighed, shrugging her coat off. “I didn’t want to be at home anymore. Not with mom and dad talking the way they are.”_

_“Do they know where you are?” Miss Maria raised her eyebrows._

_Julia shrugged noncommittally. “I did tell them,” she admitted, and she was sure that Miss Maria could tell that she wasn’t telling the whole truth._

_“Uh-huh,” Miss Maria nodded. “Well, I certainly don’t think you should go back right now. What do you want to make today?” she bent down, touching Julia’s cheek gently with warm fingers._

_Julia grinned at the invitation to stay a little longer. “Pie?” she suggested._

_Miss Maria laughed. “Pie it is. I have a new kind I’ve been wanting to make with you for a while now. Blueberry and cinnamon.”_

-

One ingredient, then another. An easy process: sugar, butter, flour. Thank god for the monotony of baking. 

-

_A telegram still sat on the counter, facedown. She didn’t have the heart to throw it away or hide it: that felt like denial, and she wasn’t in denial. But that didn’t mean she wanted to read the words everytime she passed through the kitchen. So it laid there, and she stared at it as she rolled out dough._  
_At least with the pie, she knew what she was doing. It was a simple recipe, easy to make and remake. And it reminded her of Michael, in a way. Patriotic and brave, sweet and funny. Never the exact same, no matter how many times she tried to pin it down or describe it. And, above all, her favorite. Always, always, always her favorite.  
She wiped her hands on her apron, trying to get some of the flour off so she could wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. Maybe the pie was actually similar to Michael, or maybe she was grieving and hysterical. Either was probable. _

_The telegram was going to change everything. Julia Trojan (even thinking of his name felt like a knife to her heart, and she sighed at how pathetic she felt) would never see her husband again. She would never hear him crack another joke or tap out another beat on drums. And he wasn't coming home. He wouldn’t walk up the sidewalk, he wouldn’t kiss her hello, he wouldn’t get to become a father. And, she thought selfishly, what did that mean for her? It meant she was a widow, now destined to work at that same shop, sing in the church choir, and bake pies for the rest of her life. Childless, husbandless, pitied by the whole town._  
_She was more alone than she'd ever been, even with her mother to come into the kitchen and take a swipe from the blueberry-cinnamon mixture.  
At least her mother was constant. At least baking was constant._

_Julia decided to forego the lattice crust she normally did on top of this pie; she didn’t have the energy to think through the tiny intricacies of it. Instead, she laid the second crust over it and stabbed lines sticking out from the middle, like a picture of the sun drawn by a child. She pulled the oven door open, slid the pie in, and set the timer that she kept on top of the stove.  
She’d pull it out when it was ready, or her mother would. Right now, she needed time to do something else. Read, or take a walk, or write. _

-

Baking was everything Julia loved. Creation, calm, caretaking. Most of all, it was complete control over at least one thing in her life. 

-

_She put the mixing bowl on the counter to answer the door. Her mother certainly wasn’t going to do it, from all the way up in her room with her hair in pin curlers. Although it wouldn’t have surprised Julia if she had answered the door looking half-ready. All the more reason for Julia to get the door herself._

_She pushed it open, put her foot on the stoop and - why was he walking away if he’d just knocked on the door?_

_“Hey!” she couldn’t keep herself from saying. “What’s the big idea? Aren't’ you a little old for ding-dong-ditch?”_

_The man turned on his heel to look back at her, and his face wore an expression she couldn’t recognize - angry, maybe, or ashamed - as he stared at the ground. Almost the second he looked up at her, however, his whole demeanor softened. “You’re Julia,” he breathed, his voice wavering._

_Julia didn’t know what was happening. “Do I know you?” she lifted her apron and wiped sticky sugar on one of the last clean spots._

_“No,” he took his hat off and turned it over in his hands. “I recognize you from the pictures.”_

_The whole conversation just kept getting weirder. Julia wondered if it was because she hadn’t been out much recently, except for at church. Maybe she was out of practice. “Well, I hope there are no pictures of me looking like this.”_

_That, at least, got a laugh out of him. He shook his head._

_“Are you going to make me yell down the sidewalk or do you want something?”_

_“Um, I’m Donny Novitski. I was a - buddy of Michael’s in the thirty-seventh.”_

_Julia’s blood went cold, a stark contrast from how much it was boiling a minute ago. Oh. Okay. Now this was falling into place._

_Her mother called from upstairs. “Who is it?”_

_And right. The door was still open. “Just a friend of Michael’s, mom!” she yelled upwards, and closed the door behind her._

_“I would have called,” Donny stepped forward again, closer to her. “But I didn’t have the number.”_

_Julia shook her head. “No. I, um, didn’t mean to be rude.” And then she remembered how she must look, all frazzled and like she’d spilled blueberry juice down her front. “Gosh, I’m sorry,” she wiped her hands again. “I was just baking-”_

_Donny’s hands fell to his sides and he started to walk away. “I don’t mean to bother you.”_

_“No, it’s no bother,” her feet instinctively followed his. “He mentioned you a lot in his letters.”_

_Donny smiled genuinely, if not a little sadly. She had to say that she understood; she felt the same whenever she thought about Michael._

_And isn’t it amazing what baking can bring you?”_

-

Unity. That’s what baking was about. Taking all these little individual ingredients - sugar, butter, flour, a pinch of salt, blueberries, cornstarch, cinnamon - and making them work together. Making them become one beautiful, perfect pie. 

-

_She wasn’t quite sure about this band yet. Many of them - Johnny Simpson, Jimmy Campbell, Davy Zlatic - had seemed perfectly nice when she had met them. A mild-mannered drummer, a well-spoken saxophone and clarinet player, a jokester on bass. She had felt herself drawn to those men immediately; they were easy to interact with, easy to be around. It was the angry-spirited trumpet player and frightened, unnerved trombonist that worried her._

_They all tried to get on each others' nerves a little bit, playing some game that Julia didn’t understand. It was obvious that some of them defaulted to acting like a group of brothers, or college buddies. But the way that Nick talked to and about Wayne, and the way that the other guys picked him out of the pack like he was the weakest, sickest animal and they were a pack of wolves bothered her. How could it not? He was truly nice: a father and husband. Wayne was what Michael could have been, and he was trying his best to fulfill that role with dignity and strength. It was admirable. She didn’t see how they didn’t see that.  
She couldn’t make them stop. These weren’t twelve year old girls from her Sunday school class who were gossiping about each other, people to whom she could give a look or a stern lecture and they would quit. And she certainly couldn’t threaten to call their mothers; she laughed at the very idea. _

_She had only met the men once so far, and Donny had only just invited her to come back to a practice. So she didn't really want to call herself a part of the band, not yet. But these men were nice, and her mother seemed to believe it could be good for her. Her mother, for her many faults, was usually right when it came to what Julia should do._  
_And then, of course, she wanted to continue talking to Donny, if only to get closer to him and eventually hear the answers for which she had been hoping so ardently.  
She wanted these people to like her, to think of her as one of them, even if she couldn't understand the traumas they'd experienced overseas. _

_The pie was still warm when she walked into practice and heard shouting in a voice that was obviously Donny’s._

_“Then I’m breaking the rule, Wayne, relax! The sky won’t fall.”_

_She stayed by the door and shot a wave to Johnny, who was only half paying attention to the brass players as they played, and Donny waved his arms like he was swimming in the music._

_Donny sang, waved the three of them away with frustration, and turned around. And when he smiled at the sight of Julia, her heart was ice cream on top of a warm slice of pie._

_"Hi! You brought food," he said, and Julia swore that every head in the room perked up._

_She laughed and shrugged so that the pie moved up and down. "I did. It's blueberry cinnamon pie."_

_And yeah, at that point, everyone was listening to their conversation._

_"We can eat it after practice, yeah?" Donny took it from her._

_Davy had probably tried to keep his sigh to a minimum (actually, Julia doubted that he had tried, but she'd give him the benefit of the doubt), and he received a nasty glare from Donny because of it._

_"Can't eat before I sing," Donny set the pie on a chair on the other side of the room in stern explanation. "But it'll be a good reward for after. C'mon. 1, 2, 3, 4."_

_The brass section picked up their instruments and played again, and Donny sat down to accompany at the piano. As they played, something about the music made Julia breathe a little lighter._

-

Julia hated the idea that she might burn the pie. She hated the idea that sometimes, she could put her heart into something, and it just wouldn’t turn out. When she was little, she used to watch the pie bake out of fear that she would forget it and it would be ruined. There was often a moment, right before the pie was done, when she smelled something burning and rushed to the oven to check, but it was only the pie turning golden. 

-

_It was his fault._

_She felt angry, because of course she was angry. She caught fire when she got home that night, throwing things and screaming and crying and thanking god that her mother was out of the house.  
And then, after she had burned and had put herself out because no one else was there to do it for her, she sat. Somehow, she had wound up on the kitchen floor that no one had mopped in months, her head in her hands. _

_Julia didn’t want to be honest. She was learning that honestly only brought hurt. But if she was honest, she knew she had changed in the last few months. She wasn’t the same girl she had been when she learned to bake, when she got married, when Michael left, when she’d gotten the telegram, when she joined the band. Everything had changed.  
Julia didn’t like to dwell on what-ifs and dreams, but just for tonight, in the spirit of honesty, she indulged. And she wanted that girl back. She wanted to see the girl she used to be, to touch her cheek and wear her clothes and live in her body. That girl, who was kind and self-assured, who loved and trusted with reckless abandon, who got hurt and thought she knew how to recover but apparently hadn’t understood the whole of it. She wanted to be who she used to be. _

_She wasn’t even making any sense anymore. She hadn’t realized how much she’d cried, but she didn’t bother wiping her face before standing up and swallowing heavily. She wiped her hands of the dirt that they’d accumulated from the floor, pulled out her mixing bowl, and preheated the oven._

_As she mixed, her mind drifted to those men, who had so quickly become her boys. Pain and trust and friendship and grief and ghosts and fairness and truth had become the foundations of her life, and they were her band. And she wouldn’t give that up, not even in exchange for the girl that she used to be._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, I really appreciate it! I'd love to know what you thought of the story and the playlists!


End file.
